Diary from Roma, Italy. All the places, the magic, the secrets no tour guide will ever show you.
1st Episode. Street Art in Roma Suburbs: PrimaValle
“The periphery is a human condition. Places, where there’s no Poetry, are most peripheral” The Poet of Nothing (Maurizio Mequio)
When somebody says “Roma, Italy,” most people think about Saint Peter’s, the Colosseum, the Baths of Caracalla, Museums, Churches, Parks, Fountains, Statues, Paintings, Cappella Sistina, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi (and that’s just the beginning). As everybody knows Roma, in its historic center is full of ancient and very old art, but it’s not just a triumph of old art and culture. In my Roman Diary, I’ll try to introduce you to the unknown Roman places no tour guide will ever show you and to the Suburbs places where no taxi will ever lead you. You will understand why the places I’ll show you are the ones where the strength and the power of Roma live and where we can find ancient Magic and modern Street Art, going through secrets and curiosity.
All the Roman Street Art is located in the Suburbs, painted over crumbling walls, abandoned buildings, low-cost housing, on the ruins of ancient fortresses, deconsecrated churches, former factories.
In my first episode, I’m going to show you a popular district, Primavalle, located on the west side of Roma. Primavalle is full of many and beautiful murales, some of which are designed by famous Street Artists, others by Unknown Artists, others not tagged at all, and not a single artwork is inside a gallery or even under the protection of the Ministry of Culture: they are all outdoor, under the rain, exposed to sun rays directly. And, in a way, they remind me of the “torma”, sculptures carved in the butter of yak, and remind me of the sand mandala: both kinds of artform created by Tibetan Buddhist monks — to represent non-attachment — and never destined to last for long (the butter melting and the sand dissipating.)
Along with the Via Cardinale Borromeo, we can find some of the best Primavalle murales. The first we look at, as high as the entire palace, is called “The Weight of the Memory” and represents 32 true persons, 32 portraits, 32 memories we must keep supporting because just Memory can help us to remember our history and to keep our Rights.
Largo Borromeo, near a “Daily shelter for mental patients” there’s a dismissed building: “One million little steps” by Gomez (Luis Gomez de Taran) is on it. In the lower part of the wall, the Artist wrote some poems. I’ll translate just one: “Sculpting the road as a face/ Each shot is a mark/ Each mark is a shot/ Scar on scar/ Inscribed on the road/ Every scar’s a step”
On a side street, via Giuseppe Mezzofanti, another Gomez masterpiece “Tell me a story” depicting a scene from the movie “Europa 51” by Renzo Rossellini with Ingrid Bergman, a film shot in Primavalle district.
A few hundred yards away we go down along Via Ascalesi, in one of the poorest areas of Primavalle, where we find all the murales from the association “Muracci Nostri”.
Nearby Via Ascalesi, in P.za Iginio Papa there is a market hall, and its outside walls were full of murales until summer 2020 when the Street Artists, fighting against the attempt of requalification of the market, erased all their murales, writing “Artists against the Cities of Intimidation and Arrogance”. The only artwork they left is the one portraying Gian Maria Volonté, a famous and great Italian actor.
At the end of Primavalle we find one of the most precious Street artworks, in the back of a very high building: “The Roadkill” by Fintan Magee, an Australian Street Artist. The girl holding a decapitated and bleeding head of deer is a terrible and eye-opening vision. Magee made the artwork in 2016 and the colors are already lightened and perhaps that’s why it looks so awesome: “the Roadkill” is symbolic, cathartic, resisting against time and bending to its passage as well.
I’ve been looking at the girl with the dead deer much longer than I wanted, in the middle of the wrong side of the tracks, where no politician shows his face, where people and their Rights are always forgotten: the Roadkill girl stood up there, like a weird and giant Goddess, like a Patron Saint, and — trust me — her heart was beating at the same pace than Roma’s heart: strong, powerful, alive.
all the Photos by Sandra Azzaroni
